IDFA DocLab Program & Competition | IDFA Festival

IDFA DocLab Program & Competition

IDFA DocLab Program & Competition

IDFA DocLab: Off the Internet explores the paradox of our time: the growing desire to disconnect, the impossibility of ever truly logging off, and the inherent privilege of stepping offline. With Off the Internet, DocLab turns to interactive and immersive art in search of new forms of presence and connection.

A

A Ü T O/M Ö T O R

A Ü T O/M Ö T O R

An interactive music album set in a virtual re-creation of Chicago. Explore the hip-hop history of the city in 31 chapters, tracking the genre’s influence all the way to New York and Spoleto, Italy.

Another Place

Another Place

Domenico Singha Pedroli

A ghost story told from the first-person perspective of a trans woman seeking asylum in Paris. A VR experience about alienation, missing home, and searching for connection in an unfathomable world.

Artificial Sex (Ep. 1 & 2)

Artificial Sex (Ep. 1 & 2)

Anan Fries (Posthuman Wombs) uses AI bots and 3D printers to explore the potentials of queerness and creativity within the digisexual revolution. A multimedia video essay that you may—no, must—physically touch.

C

Coded Black

Coded Black

A darkly atmospheric, immersive game about the history of slavery and racism in the US and the UK—featuring powerful archival material and the stories of both well-known and unknown heroes.

D

Deep Soup

Deep Soup

Luna Maurer, Roel Wouters

This film, made with video contributions from users around the world, shows the emergence of a physical intelligence in a kind of primordial soup, fed with images of friction and gravity in our physical reality.

E

Eternal Habitat

Eternal Habitat

Sergey Prokofyev

Glide endlessly through space and time, and through detailed constructions that attest to filmmaker Prokofyev’s other career as an architect, in this behind-the-scenes look at the vast, dynamic environments in which our fleeting lives unfold.

The Exploding Girl VR

The Exploding Girl VR

Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel

An embodiment of her generation, Candice explodes daily—bloodily—under pressure from depression, anxiety, and rage. Searching for an escape from loneliness in an indifferent world, she navigates her way through soulless sex and psychedelic violence.

F

Feedback Fulldome, un musical antifuturista

Feedback Fulldome, un musical antifuturista

Claudix Vanesix

A fulldome adaptation of a VR musical in which you drink a mystical beverage and then travel through digital and physical dimensions. Three figures, inspired by Andean futurism, guide you through a ritual that examines tradition, identity & technology.

Feedback VR, un musical antifuturista

Feedback VR, un musical antifuturista

Claudix Vanesix

A VR musical in which you drink a mystical beverage and then travel through multiple digital and physical dimensions. Three figures, inspired by Andean futurism, guide you through a ritual that examines tradition, identity, and technology.

G

Gamer Keyboard Wall Piece #2

Gamer Keyboard Wall Piece #2

In his video installations, artist Sjef van Beers questions the stereotypical image of the gamer. He explores the underlying social mechanisms through text and animation, in search of a new political identity for these isolated young men.

H

Handle with Care

Handle with Care

Ontroerend Goed, Alexander Devriendt

No actors. No technicians. Just the audience—and a box. Using elements from the box, audience members create their own performance. Interactive and immersive, and utterly unpredictable.

I

In 36,000 Ways (Site-Specific Installation)

In 36,000 Ways (Site-Specific Installation)

Karim Ben Khelifa

A confrontation with a piece of shrapnel, brought back from the front lines in Ukraine. It is just one of the 36,000 deadly shards produced by a single fragmentation weapon. But here this tool of destruction becomes an invitation for empathy and reflection.

individualism in the dead-internet age: an anti-big tech asset flip shovelware r̶a̶n̶t̶ manifesto

individualism in the dead-internet age: an anti-big tech asset flip shovelware r̶a̶n̶t̶ manifesto

Nathalie Lawhead

This tirade in the form of a “walking simulator” is a blistering call to action against big tech, a paean to the free space the internet once was, and a lament for all we’ve lost to techno-capitalism.

L

Lesbian Simulator

Lesbian Simulator

Iris van der Meule

Create your lesbian avatar, go on your first date and visit your first rave. But also: come out of the closet and face harassment and public disapproval. This cartoonish VR game puts everyone in the situations you can encounter as a lesbian woman. Current Future: Age suggestion 14+

Life Needs Internet 2010–2025

Life Needs Internet 2010–2025

Jeroen van Loon

What is your relationship with the internet? How does it shape your life? Jeroen van Loon collected over 1,400 letters on this topic from people around the world. The result is an installation that asks: Do we need the internet in our lives?

A Long Goodbye

A Long Goodbye

Kate Voet, Victor Maes

72-year-old Ida, who lives with dementia, navigates her way through the day with the help of cassette tapes recorded by her husband and Post-it notes left throughout the house. In this tender VR experience, we get to know her as she rediscovers herself.

M

MILKMAN ZERO: The First Delivery

MILKMAN ZERO: The First Delivery

The simple task of delivering bottles of milk spirals out of control in the theatrical computer game MILKMAN ZERO. A faceless narrator manipulates the player, normalizing violence and sacrificing humanity on the altar of efficiency.

N

Nothing to See Here

Nothing to See Here

Peer into this stereoscopic viewing box and experience an alternative reality in the middle of a busy public space. Is that man who’s behaving strangely real or fictional? And what’s happening behind your back? Is reality actually an objective truth?

O

The Odeus

The Odeus

This sublime vision of the vast celestial vault is achieved not with computers, but by filming liquids and chemical solutions at an extremely close range, in the tradition of 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Tree of Life.

The Oracle: Ritual for the Future (for humans and non-humans)

The Oracle: Ritual for the Future (for humans and non-humans)

Victorine van Alphen

The Oracle is a thought-provoking futuristic ritual about the evolving relationship between humans, bodies and AI. Blending personal story with an eerie systemic presence, participants delve into sensuality, death, agency and irreversible change.

R

Reality Looks Back

Reality Looks Back

An exploration of the everyday mysteries of quantum mechanics, in which the state of particles is only certain when observed, and split déjà vus imply parallel realities.

The Rift

The Rift

Janire Najera, Matthew Wright

Water is the unifying element in this fulldome film, where powerful dance and exhilarating music interweave nature and culture, humanity and environment. Filmed in bamboo forests, abandoned buildings, rivers and vast plains across Zimbabwe.

T

Tracing Colombia

Tracing Colombia

An immersive interactive film in which visual artist Jan Rothuizen travels to Colombia with his camera and drawing tools for an exploratory personal journey. What traces of the country’s complex history will he find in modern Colombia?

U

Under the Same Sky

Under the Same Sky

In this 360° VR documentary about the war in Gaza, the camera, mounted on a long pole, shows the horrors of Israeli occupation through the eyes of Palestinian journalists.

Unimaginable Red

Unimaginable Red

Vitor Freire, Monique Grimord

A sensual journey through a possible version of Amsterdam’s red-light district, where pleasure is everywhere to be had. Eroticism, anarchy and a seductively vibrating console go hand in hand.

W

We Are Dead Animals

We Are Dead Animals

Tote Tiere Maarten

Bring animals back to life in the virtual paradise created by Tote Tiere Maarten—from a deer shot by hunters to a hedgehog run over by a car. A collectible album of animal cards, with a twist.